This article was written by Daphne Tomlinson, Senior Research Associate at Memoori. In 2020, an alternative to a conventional IPO – Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) – took the innovation landscape by storm, according to Michael Holman of Lux Research. “A SPAC is an alternative to a conventional initial public offering (IPO) in which an investor group takes a shell company public through its own IPO and then uses the proceeds from the IPO to acquire a private company, which now becomes the new publicly traded company. Investors essentially get to outsource their due diligence to the SPAC sponsor, and the private company gets to bypass the risk and indignities of an IPO roadshow and simply negotiate a price directly with the SPAC sponsor.” The popularity of SPACs has been noted by many financial commentators throughout this year and in the smart buildings space, we have seen several recent examples of companies announcing or considering […]